First off is the Union statement
CUPW Issues 72-Hour Strike Notice: A Call for Fair Negotiation
Tuesday May 20 2025
2023-2027/251
No. 83 - AMENDED
On Monday, May 19, CUPW issued a 72-hour strike notice to Canada Post. This action was not taken lightly, but it was done for several reasons.
The collective agreements for the Urban Postal Operations and the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers bargaining units, which were extended by the Government in December 2024, are set to expire Friday, May 23 at midnight.
CUPW negotiators met with Canada Post over several days at the end of April and early May, with the goal of resolving our bargaining dispute and achieving new collective agreements for both bargaining units.
Last week, Canada Post walked away from the bargaining table for the third time, telling the Union it would return with new comprehensive offers. A week has passed. With the expiry of our collective agreements drawing closer by the day, we are still waiting. The clock is ticking, and so far, Canada Post has yet to deliver.
The day after Canada Post walked away and paused bargaining, it fired another shot, by threatening to unilaterally change your working conditions and suspend employee benefits if new agreements aren’t reached. This aggressive move undermines good faith bargaining and the stability of our public postal service. It had to be met with strong resistance. Postal workers won’t be threatened or coerced into accepting offers that will gut our collective agreements and undermine good, stable jobs.
Our right to strike was taken away from us and put on “a time out” by former Minister of Labour Steven MacKinnon’s orders and the Canada Industrial Relations Board in December 2024. By issuing this notice, we are simply announcing our intention to continue our legal strike that was put on pause by the CIRB.
The Work Continues
Although we have served notices, there is still time for negotiations to take place. We remain committed to achieving negotiated collective agreements. Your National Executive Board and Negotiating Committees urge Canada Post to return to the bargaining table with real offers that protect the health and well-being of postal workers, support the communities we serve, and ensure a strong and sustainable public postal service for all.
In solidarity,
Jan Simpson
National President
Offers To Be Tabled Today
Wednesday May 21 2025
2023-2027/252
No. 84
After walking away from the table for the third time, Canada Post will finally table their global offers today. Our negotiating committee is currently on the way to receive the proposals.
Once the offers are officially presented, we will take the time to carefully review the details of the offers to ensure they align with the priorities and needs of our members. We will provide a comprehensive update once we’ve completed our review and analysis.
In solidarity,
Jan Simpson
National President
Canada Post receives strike notices from CUPW – customers should be prepared for possible service delays
Today, Canada Post received strike notices from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), for both Urban and RSMC (Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers) bargaining units. The notices indicate that CUPW intends to begin strike activity as of Friday, May 23 at 12:00 am local time, unless the parties reach agreements before then.
Our operations continue as usual at this time.
What you can expect
In the event CUPW initiates rotating strike activity, Canada Post intends to continue delivering in unaffected areas while working to reach agreements. We will work to minimize service disruptions, but customers may experience delays.
In the event of a national labour disruption, mail and parcels will not be delivered and no new items will be accepted until the disruption is over. All mail and parcels in our network will be secured and delivered as quickly as possible once operations resume.
Following either a rotating strike or a national labour disruption, processing and delivery may take some time to fully return to normal.
The potential for another strike comes at a critical moment for the postal system. Since 2018, the Corporation has recorded more than $3 billion in losses before tax, and it will post another significant loss for 2024. In early 2025, the Government of Canada announced repayable funding of up to $1.034 billion for Canada Post to prevent insolvency.
Negotiations update
Canada Post remains committed to reaching collective agreements focused on protecting and enhancing the wages and benefits that are important to our people while reflecting the Corporations’ current realities.
CUPW Receives Global Offers
Wednesday May 21 2025
2023-2027/254
Today, May 21, our negotiation committees received global offers from Canada Post for both the Urban Postal Operation (UPO) and the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMCs) bargaining units.
The Negotiators are currently reviewing and analyzing the offers’ contents. We will provide a more in-depth analysis shortly, but here are some of the main elements of the offers below:
How These Offers Fall Short
Canada Post is seeking to change some hard-fought collective agreement rights and methods.
- Wages: A wage increase of 13% over 4 years This is short of our last demand for a 19% increase to members’ base wages to keep pace with the rising costs of living.
- Cost Of Living Allowance: The 13.59% trigger threshold is far too high and means it will likely never be paid out. The offered 6% wage increase should be seen as back pay to make up for the high inflation from the previous periods because the COLA payments in 2022-2023 were not sufficient and are not part of the base salary.
- Part-Time Parcel Delivery: For Urban members, instead of using regular full-time workers and existing collective agreement provisions for seven-day delivery, they want to introduce approximately 20% more part-time positions than the 10% that exists today. Some “flex” part time would be forced to stay up to 30 hours per week.
- Dynamic Routing: They also want to introduce dynamic routing in a limited number of locations without proper agreement on the rules governing such a system. Although CPC is stating that the routes will be route measurement system compliant, they are unable to demonstrate this to the Union and admit they do not have the software to do this or the technical ability to enact this process.
- Load Levelling: For both RSMC and Urban members, Canada Post wants to introduce load levelling – all routes are designed with a sophisticated process that utilizes agreed upon time values and restructure processes- instead of fixing the issues with the current system, Canada Post wants to transfer volumes of mail and points of calls to other workers during scheduled hours with no additional compensation. This is to be done on an ad hoc basis each morning by supervisors who may have limited knowledge of the route measurement systems.
- Two-tier benefits qualification: Canada Post also wants to create a second class of benefits qualification requirements for new hires by delaying health and pension benefits until six months of consecutive regular employment.
- Personal Days that Already Exist under the Law: The additional six personal days are part of the Canada Labour Code, writing them into the collective agreements is helpful, but is window dressing.
- They’re taking away the 5-minute wash-up time.
Canada Post Says No to Two-Week Truce
Canada Post has refused our request for a two-week truce so that we can have time to review these offers in detail and continue negotiations without a labour disruption.
Remember: Your Union is the most reliable and accurate source of information about Negotiations. Please stay tuned for future updates to keep yourself informed.
Your Negotiators thank all members for their ongoing support!
In solidarity,
Jan Simpson
National President
Interesting video, at 3:50 into the video, a professor from Carlton University who has studied Canada Post for many years. He believes that 30 to 40K of Postal workers will become redundant. Many Post Offices will shut down as no one is hardly using them. Coupled with the fact that mail delivery to households will stop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZViNiRQ4RZc
Union asks to meet at 7 pm May 22
I spoke to a group of postal workers at my local post office. Here is what I found out. They lost roughly $5,000 in pay in the last strike. They desire to avoid a strike; they haven't received a request for a vote, as this is simply a continuation of last year's strike. The union's coffers are low, and union dues will increase or have already increased. This might also explain why the union does not want to be on strike, as it will also cost them money. Just curious what everyone thinks about reopening their eBay store. I, for one, will stay closed as I am uncertain if Canada Post will lock out the employees and then find all my shipments stuck in their facility. By locking out the employees, it may get the Government to step in and call for arbitration. It will be interesting to see what Canada Post will do now, as this will help determine how we should proceed as sellers.
